The Guilty Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he had regretted on waking. I was still only halfway through my rolls and coffee when he strolled past, saying quietly:-
    â€˜I’ll meet you at reception in about fifteen minutes, OK?’
    â€˜OK,’ I nodded, a surge of happiness welling up inside me. It had been so long since I had experienced any feeling even remote to happiness that for a few choked filled seconds I thought I was actually going to cry. Fool, I said inwardly. Isn’t it about time? Everyone said I would be happy again, I’ve just been too pig-headed to believe them. For months I had felt that I had no right to feel happiness. Not after what I had done. Doctor McClure had lost patience with me over that. He had been in turn both gentle and brutal, but always his message had been the same. Put the past behind me where it belonged. Nothing could change it. If I was to regain my mental and emotional stability then I had to start life afresh. Well, this morning McClure would have been pleased with me. While I waited for Jonathan I selected another postcard from the rack and wrote on it what had seemed so derisory only twenty-four hours ago. ‘Having a lovely time, Jenny’. Then I addressed it to the clinic and handed it to the young boy, who served on reception and didn’t look a day over thirteen.
    â€˜Ready?’
    I turned quickly, aware that my cheeks had flushed. ‘Yes. Camera, guide-book, map. Everything the well equipped tourist needs.’
    He grinned. ‘ I think we can dispense with the map. There’s only one road we can possibly take from Viana to Valenca. I don’t think we risk getting lost.’
    â€˜Maybe not, but there’s wolves in those mountains and I’m not a girl to take chances.’
    â€˜Now that I don’t believe.’
    His hand reached for mine and we laughed.
    â€˜Not those sort of chances anyway.’
    Watched with interest by several of the Santa Luzia’s army of staff we walked across the pink marbled hallway with its urns of trailing greenery and into the car park. That was the only sticky moment of the day.
    â€˜Yours or mine?’ he asked, surveying both our neatly parked cars. ‘A Volkswagen is more sensible on these roads.’
    â€˜And a Lamborgini more exciting.’
    â€˜When my rear suspension goes I shall know who to blame,’ he said good-naturedly, opening the car door for me as I eased out a sigh of relief.
    Even now, looking back on it, that day was magical. It was one of those special, sunny days that seem to occur only in childhood, when every single thing was fun and the sky was a permanent blue, and your companion and yourself were in perfect harmony. And like childhood I should have known from the start it was a perfection that couldn’t last. We swooped down the first of the curves and onto the parapet fronting the religious monument that the Portuguese seemed to build on every available hill. Jonathan swerved to a halt.
    â€˜Have you seen that?’
    At the foot of the granite steps leading up to the shrine stood an elderly, balding little man with a handkerchief tied rakishly around his neck. By his side was an object that looked as if it had escaped from a museum.
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜Only a genuine Zeiss Ikon box camera!’ Jonathan said, reaching for his door handle. ‘It can’t work surely! It must be some sort of con trick to get people to have their photographs taken. There must be a modern Instamatic inside. That thing must be at least fifty years old!’
    I followed him round the front of the car to where the man, sensing custom, was straightening down the brilliant yellow cover that shielded his contraption from the sun, steadying the rickety tripod on which it perched.
    â€˜How much?’ Jonathan asked.
    The man delved into his pocket displaying four hundred escudos. Jonathan laughed, shaking his head, taking from his wallet one hundred and fifty escudos. The photographer